“Then what do you say to these Glasses fine? Yes, they shall have no Praise of mine; For when a Company there are sat, For to be merry, as we are met; Then, if you chance to touch the Brim, Down falls your Liquor, and all therein; If your Table Cloath be never so fine, There lies your Beer, your Ale or Wine; It may be for a small Abuse, A young Man may his Service lose; But had it been in a Leather Bottel, And the Stopple in, then all had been well.” The rhymester recapitulates the gratitude of all classes for this extremely handy and unbreakable convenience, and winds up thus, somewhat sadly— “Then when the Bottel doth grow old, And will good Liquor no longer hold, Out of its side you may take a Clout, Will mend your Shooes when they’r worn out; Else take it, and hang it upon a Pin, It will serve to put many Trifles in, As Hinges, Awls, and Candle-ends, For young Beginners must have such things. _Then I wish_, etc.” The next most popular English drinking vessel was the _greybeard_, or as it was sometimes, but seldom, called the _Bellarmine_, from the Cardinal of that name so famous for his controversial works. These jugs were imported largely from the Low Countries, where the Cardinal’s name was a reproach. These greybeards are of very common occurrence, being frequently found in excavating on the sites of old houses. Two centuries after the greybeard, came the brown Staffordshire _Toby Philpot_, an enormously stout old gentleman, whose arms and hands encircle his enormous paunch, and his three-cornered hat forms a most convenient lip, whence the ale can be poured. It owes its origin to a once very popular drinking song, entitled “The Brown Jug,” which is an imitation from the Latin of Hieronymus Amaltheus, by Francis Fawkes, M.A., published in 1761, which is the date of the accompanying illustration. [Illustration] “Dear Tom, this brown jug, which now foams with mild ale, Out of which I now drink to sweet Nan of the Vale, Was once Toby Philpot, a thirsty old soul, As e’er cracked a bottle, or fathom’d a bowl; In bousing about, ’twas his pride to excel, And amongst jolly topers he bore off the bell. It chanced as in dog-days he sat at his ease, In his flower-woven arbour, as gay as you please, With his friend and a pipe, puffing sorrow away, And with honest Old Stingo sat soaking his clay, His breath-doors of life on a sudden were shut, And he died full big as a Dorchester Butt. His body, when long in the ground it had lain, And time into clay had dissolved it again, A potter found out, in its covert so snug, And with part of Fat Toby he form’d this brown jug; Now sacred to friendship, to mirth, and mild ale— So here’s to my lovely sweet Nan of the Vale.”